Lord Livermore (Lab)

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. As I have outlined, the measures contained in this Bill are necessary to repair the public finances, to rebuild public services, to protect working people and to invest in Britain. This includes an historic investment of an additional £25.7 billion for the NHS that is helping to bring down waiting lists more quickly and puts an end to over a decade of underinvestment and neglect. In doing so, the Government have kept their promise to working people to not increase their income tax, their national insurance or their VAT. We have always acknowledged that there are costs to responsibility, but the cost of irresponsibility would have been far greater. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, asked about the impact of the Bill on hospices. The Government of course recognise the vital role that hospices play in supporting people at the end of life and their families, and the cost pressures that the hospice sector has been facing over many years. That is why, as several noble Lords have mentioned, we are supporting the sector with a £100 million increase for adult and children’s hospices to ensure that they have the best physical environment for care, and £26 million revenue funding to support children’s and young people’s hospices. All charities, including hospices set up as charities, can also benefit from the employment allowance, which this Bill more than doubles from £5,000 to £10,500. On assessments, as I have said previously, the Government and the OBR have already outlined the impacts of this policy change. This approach is in line with previous changes to national insurance and previous similar changes to taxation; the Government do not intend to provide further impact assessments. The revenue raised from the measures in this Bill will play a critical role in repairing the public finances and rebuilding our public services. Any future changes which exempt certain groups would have cost implications, necessitating higher borrowing, lower spending or alternative revenue-raising measures. For these reasons and the other reasons that I have already set out, I respectfully ask noble Lords not to press their Motions containing Amendments 1B, 5B, 8B and 21B.